With regard to the fishing reel, a drive unit is installed with a sealing mechanism to both prevent the drive unit placed within a housing unit that itself is formed in the reel from being invaded by such substances water and to make sure that the driving function is always stable, even in environments where inundation by such things as water can easily occur. It is a fishing reel that utilizes a magnetic seal as the sealing mechanism, as known from, for example, Japanese Published Unexamined Application No. 2010-187566 (the “'566 application”) and Japanese Published Unexamined Application No. 2011-167186 (the “'186 application”), the entireties of which are incorporated by reference in their entireties.
With regard to the fishing reel of the '566 application, a magnetic circuit is formed between the space of the opening of the accommodating recess that houses the drive member rotated during the operation of the handle and the drive member itself, with the opening being sealed by the current maintained within this space. With regard to the fishing reel of the '186 application, a sealing mechanism is formed between the drive member that rotates with the rotor and the supporting unit that supports said drive member.
The magnetic sealing mechanism is formed by a magnet, the cylindrical magnetic body that is fitted between the drive member or the drive unit and that forms the magnetic circuit between the magnet, and the magnetic fluid maintained between the magnet and magnetic material. It is proposed in both the '566 application and the '186 application that the inner ring of the one-way clutch be elongated and serve as the cylindrical magnetic body.
When a cylindrical magnetic body that comprises the magnetic seal is fitted to a drive unit, such as a pinion gear, the manufacturing process becomes troublesome when, for example, a fitting part needs to be formed for fitting to the outer periphery of a pinion gear. When the cylindrical magnetic body is combined with the inner ring of the one-way clutch, the inner ring must be made into a specialized shape, meaning that not only is the general-purpose, one-way clutch unusable due to high costs, the rotation (movement) of the roller of the one-way clutch is affected by the magnetization of the inner ring, thereby affecting the function of the one-way clutch, with these just being some of the problems.
This invention was created to solve these problems, wherein the purpose of the magnetic seal configuration of the fishing reel is to make sure that the functionality of the one-way clutch is not negatively affected, and to ensure the stability of waterproofing performance with easy assembly.